Newbie - quick question.

**anettis** · 08-21-2003, 02:02 AM

OK, I am very impressed. I have been a long time Windows unser, but as of late have been wanting to learn about Linux. So I downloaded the KNOPPIX iso file, burned it to CD, rebooted my DELL Inspiron 8200 laptop (1.8 GHz, 512MB) - Linux is up and running, I have access to the Internet through my router, my optical mouse works - wow that was easy.

However I did notice there was significant HD activity while I was toying around in Linux. I am afraid that my HD might have been corrupted. After I rebotted without KNOPPIX I ran CHKDSK and sure enough it found some problems. Is this a coincidence or did KNOPPIX write to my Hard Drive?

Thanks,

Tony

**JoDaY** · 08-21-2003, 02:28 AM

Hi,

I think that this is not a sign of hard disk activity but ide activity:::::your cdrom (drvrom)

I'm agree with you that it could impress a lot but knoppix don't care about your hard drive....

Do you believe in checkdisk ?

........

You may have to do a scandisk ..........

....

Welcome !

**Tech2k** · 08-21-2003, 02:52 AM

Dont worry.Knoppix mounts all partitions it finds READ ONLY and will not write anything to your drive unless you go thru the steps to change to read/write mode.You have to tell it to do this and it's not going to just happen magicly.The only exception would be if it found a linux type 82 swap partition on boot but thats like a temp file anyway and has no data to loose.

Knopix needs no hard drive to run from cd.Unplug your hd sometimes and prove it to yourself

**anettis** · 08-21-2003, 06:29 AM

OK folks - thanks for the replys. I poked around and tried to update some files on my C: drive. Sure enough in most cases I got zapped with a read-only message. However, when I clicked into the recycle bin, I was able to open and save. Anyone else try that? (I am running Windows XP Professional). It is possible the file update did not go through, but I did not get the read-only error message I expected.

Tony

**anettis** · 08-21-2003, 04:43 PM

Never mind - my bad. When I did save a document in my XP recycle bin (froim within KNOPPIX) it did not give me a read-only error when I pressed the save button BECAUSE I did not actualy change the file. When changing the file, then trying to save it, sure enought I get a read-only error. So I think I am fine. Also the WIndows XP CHKDSK errors I was receiving I think are normal when running CHKDSK from a command prompt within XP as it does not have exclusive accesss to the volume. So the CHKDSK errors had nothing to do with KNOPPIX. Everything is cool.

Tony

**aay** · 08-21-2003, 08:51 PM

Let me make a quick comment here. Is your XP using NTFS? If so you can read fine, but don't try and write! Wrting to NTFS will most certainly cause you problems. If you are using vfat then you should have no problem.